• • Edgar Waite: Is it your purpose to reflect life as it is lived — — or are you trying to elevate the stage?
• • Mae West: Don't kid me. I've had one dominating purpose in writing such plays as "Diamond Lil," "The Drag," "Sex," "The Wicked Age," and "Pleasure Man."
• • Edgar: Moral uplift?
• • Mae: Box-office uplift.
• • Edgar: What luck?
• • Mae: Assorted. Last Monday at the Curran, we took in $300 more than Ethel Barrymore on her opening night last summer. On the other hand, if the district attorney of New York hadn't closed "Sex" because the curbstone bidding for tickets took too many cops off their regular beats, I'd have owned my own theatre by now.
• • Edgar: Do you consider your plays quite moral?
• • Mae: I consider them a theatrical representation of those phases of life which interest the public more than anything else, and have since the days of Sappho, Aspasia, and Delilah.
• • Edgar: And when was that?
• • Mae: Forever. . . .
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • The Curran Theatre, where Mae West performed her play in 1929, is located at 445 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102.
• • Come up and see Mae every day online: http://MaeWest.blogspot.com/
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Mae West
• • Photo: • • Mae West • • 1928 illustration • •
NYC
Mae West.
